LeBlanc: If you are going to hunt it, cook and eat it too

I dare anyone to turn their nose at this venison dish by Mossy Oak recipes.

I dare anyone to turn their nose at this venison dish by Mossy Oak recipes.

Photo: Mossy Oak

Photo: Mossy Oak

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I dare anyone to turn their nose at this venison dish by Mossy Oak recipes.

I dare anyone to turn their nose at this venison dish by Mossy Oak recipes.

Photo: Mossy Oak

LeBlanc: If you are going to hunt it, cook and eat it too

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In the bygone years of my youth my family and the general consensus in Southeast Texas was you didn't shoot any critter unless it was for a purpose: food, income, or self-defense. Even as simple as those categories were there were even restrictions for each of those purposes.

For instance, income was pretty well considered meaning necessary for livelihood and never for waste or greedy motivation because to over harvest some animal for a profit could one day lead to a shortage of the animal and its removal from your income for daily needs in the future. Of course there were and are always those who come into the area with no more consideration for conservation and the future of such animals than the coal companies that went into West Virginia in the past as described in the John Prone song "Paradise." We have all seen them and their number today seem to be increasing resulting in increased restrictions that can be seen in most hunting scenarios and locations. A lot of that can also be put at the feet of ignorance of some who were never educated in the preservation of Mother Nature with nothing more to guide them than greed, destruction, and waste.

The income I am describing and a point in which some of us hunters partook was catching shrimp and crabs for our use as well as sale or trade to others and bounty hunting; the most notable when I was growing up was shooting nutria for the bounty paid by government entities and others trying to get rid of invasive critters causing destruction of property or crops.

Self-defense is an easy one and in this instance I mean the killing of cottonmouth water moccasins or canebrake rattlesnakes that a person could not avoid or some other wild creature that decided to come after you leaving no practical way or time to escape the aggression. With the pit vipers this can happen while walking around almost any body of freshwater, or near a creek or river, around a marsh, in the sand dunes at the beach, and in among the driftwood on the beach. Don't forget that we also have a bumper crop of alligators in southeast Texas. In the case of all alligators and canebrake rattlesnakes you better have a really good reason to destroy one as they are now protected by laws and in the case of the alligator, seasons.

Now let's get to the food. We seldom caught or shot anything we did not eat...period. That applied primarily to fish, shrimp, and crabs and rabbits, squirrels, duck, geese and deer, and if a person did not use the animals for food than you did not harvest them. I cannot think of many in that time period and place in Texas history who took any critter for a trophy only. I think today it is done because most folks do not know how to prepare wild game for the table.

Today there are few who can cook from scratch, such is our society today. But I can attest to one thing and that is you cannot cook venison like one cooks beef bought from the grocery store and hope to have anything other than a waste of time and good venison it want happen. The same goes for all wild game including turkeys or any other game birds.

There are no shortage of books dedicated to preparing wild game and many of them are really good, but to help us out today Mossy Oak has come out with great receipts for cooking wild game, all tested by their staff, and is free of charge on line.

MossyOak.com has added to its large reserve of free digital and written content by offering field-proven wild game recipes. With venison recipes, duck dishes, fish fare and more, their wild game recipes provide a variety of options from all types of species to better prepare your harvest.

Their mission is to help people live their best life outdoors. Like them I truly believe one of the most rewarding parts of hunting and fishing is preparing a meal from the game. Mossy Oak wants to help outdoors people engage every part of the hunting and outdoors experience and that includes preparing and cooking the game hunters and anglers work so hard to get.

To explore this no charge valuable collection of wild game recipes at, visit https://www.mossyoak.com/your-obsession/content-type/wild-game-recipes. The all-new extensive library of free, original, and engaging content is accessible on any device.

Before you make a face at wild game for table fare let me suggest that you take time to consider that the beef, pork, chicken, or seafood you are eating and enjoying on a daily basis was raised, caught, killed, butchered and delivered to your favorite store for you to purchase. There is absolutely not difference in the acquisition of the meat, except possible the deer was taken by a bullet or arrow and the cow was destroyed by a hammer between the eyes.

So folks find you a good recipe that sounds good to you and jump into the deep end of wild game cooking and just see if you don't come up with a delicious and winning dish to serve.